Turkey's hydropower capacity grows despite drought lowering output

Although Turkey's installed hydropower capacity is continuing its growth, output from hydropower plants has fallen to 20.1 percent in electricity generation during the January-July period of this year, according to data compiled by Anadolu Agency on Sept. 1.

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By the end of July, 735 hydropower plants generated electricity in Turkey.

The share of these plants in the country's total electricity generation of 188.7 billion kilowatt-hours was 20.1 percent, or 37.9 billion kilowatt-hours during the January-July period of this year.

Hydropower plants saw a dramatic drop in output due to drought, which first emerged in the last quarter of 2020.

The share of hydropower plants in electricity generation during the January-July period of 2020 hit 31.6 percent, generating 53.8 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity out of the total of 170.4 billion kilowatt-hours.

At the end of July this year, Turkey's hydropower capacity reached 31,436 megawatts, accounting for 32 percent of the country's total installed power capacity of 98,264 megawatts.

Hydropower constituted 60 percent of Turkey's total installed renewable capacity, which stood at 52,000 megawatts.

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The country's first hydropower plant, the Tarsus plant in the Mersin province, began operations in 1902 with a capacity of 60 kilowatts. This increased to 18 megawatts in 1950, and up to 412 megawatts in 1960.

Turkey's hydropower capacity accelerated especially after the year 2000 to 13,063 megawatts by the end of 2006 and 23,643 megawatts in 2014, relative to 6,764 megawatts in 1990.

By the end of last year, this further expanded to 30,984 megawatts.

According to the International Hydropower Association (IHA), Turkey added 2,500...